Noël à Paris

We started at 4 30 in the evening from our office to catch a bus to Aakhan (which is in Germany). We reached at Aakhan at around 6. From there we had a train to Paris at 7.
There were 5 of us. Initially all of us were not in the same wagon, but after some time, two of us shifted to the other wagon and we had a great time together, singing songs, clicking pictures. We hardly noticed that 3 hrs were already over! when we reached Gare du Nord station in Paris.
My friend's cousin had come to receive us all at the station. From there we took a pass for metro and headed on our way towards Eiffel Tower J. First we went to a station called Barbes` Rochechourt. From here we went to a station called Charles de Gaulle. There we changed the metro line to line number 6 and reached a station called Trocade`ro which is where the eiffel tower is. We were on the other side of the river. By the time we reached there it was 11 30 at night. The Eiffel Tower was looking so awesome at night, it was amazing. The moment we reached there we started taking pictures, the photo session continued for almost 20-25 minutes!.
Then were waiting there for it to be 12'00 when the lights on the Tower would start blinking. This was another amazing sight (I have taken a clip of the blinking lights.) The feeling of being at the Eiffel Tower on the Christmas night was awesome.
After that we started off to the hotel which we had booked, because there was no guarantee that the metro service would be available till late night as it was Xmas time.
Next day morning we went to the station Denfert Rochereau and took a day travel pass for the metro. From here we went to another station St. Michel which has famous St. Michel Chruch. Here we went at the Fountain place and clicked more photos J. From here we went to the famous church Notre Dame. This is one of the big Cathedrals. There were some rituals going on at the Church. After seeing the church, it was food time! We had ‘Morroccon’ food in the market area near the St. Michel station. We had a dish called 'Couscous' with chicken curry. Basically couscos is like our 'Upma'. It didnt taste that great.. but ok we tried a different dish..
Then we had to go back to Eiffel tower to climb up till the top of the Tower. So again we took a metro. There are two ways to go to the top of the Eiffel tower, either you take a lift directly to the top floor or you can climb up the stairs till 2nd floor and then take a lift from there to the top floor.
We chose the second way and climbed up the stairs till the second floor. The history of how the tower was built is written along with the pictures along the stairs. We stopped at each floor and viewed the city fromt the tower. It was a lovely experience. There are telescopes placed at each floor to get better views. And ofcourse, we clicked lot of pictures! From the tower we can see many of the famous sight seeing places in Paris like the Churches. Notes and pointers are kept at the tower which point to the important landmarks in Paris.
On the second floor we have distances and names of the major cities in different countries of the world marked along with the flag of the country. I have taken a snap of the cities Hyderabad, Mumbai which you can see to get an idea.
From the second floor we took a lift to the top of Eiffel Tower. It was wonderful experience to see the city of Paris from such a height. We had very little time left because it was already past 4 and we had to rush back to the station to catch our train back to Aakhan. So we rushed our way back down the stairs. We went to a coffee shop at the metro station. There I had a dish called crepe` which is like very thin wheat flour dosa. It comes with many combinations of other stuff like chocolate, banana whatever stuffing we want. I had chosen chocolate. It was triangular in shape and at the 3 corners of it there was whipped cream and in the middle there was something like coconut pudding. It was simply delicious! yummy!
Then we had the toughest challenge ahead of us. At the coffee shop it was 5 15 and our station back to Aakhan was at 5 55. We had to go back to the Gare du Nord from there. We took a train to Charles de Gaulle. From here the next station La chapel was 12 stations away. At each station it takes 1 min. We reached La Chapelle at 5 40. The stations La Chapelle and Gare du Nord are internally connected. We had exactly 15 minutes to reach Gare du Nord. We started runnign and we ran so fast! At one point i was not able to run at all because of the cold weather and i thought i would miss the train.
Finally we reached at the platform with a difference of just 3 minutes and found that there were two trains at the same platform and ours was the second one, so again we had to run all the way to the second one. We just climbed in the first wagon which was for second class and from there we went to our wagon. It was incredible thing to catch a train that way.
We reached Aakhan at around 9 and from there we took a bus back to Maastricht..

Brussels(Belgium)

I had gone to Netherlands for official work. Netherlands being a 'Schengen' state, the visa is valid for 15 EU countries. I happened to visist Brussels (in Belgium) during this trip. A short story about my trip..

We started at 12'00 noon. From Maastricht we took a train to Leige. It was just 15 minutes journey and we were in a different country!
From there we took another train to Brussels Nord. This was one hour journey. Belgium is a country where 3 languages are spoken i.e French, Dutch and German. Mostly people speak Dutch or French. In the train we met a French person, who could speak quite a good english and he told us many things about Belgium. There are many Indians in Belgium because there is steel plant in belgium by Mr. Laxmi Mittal and many indians work there.
There we got down and took a day travel pass. This can be used throughtout the day for going anywhere in brussels using metro, bus or train. We were supposed to take a bus tour which takes us around brussels and we can see 13 famous points. One of these points is mini europe which has miniature monuments of all famous places in each european country. But we met one indian at Brussels Nord, who told us to visit the central place in brussels which has many old beautiful buildings. So from Brussels Nord station we went to Brussels Central. From here there is a place called Grand Place which has very old beautiful buildings and a church. Since it was Xmas time, everything was very beautifully decorated :) i will send the pictures soon.. The symbol of Belgium is a funny one.. its a statue of a small naked boy urinating in a fountain. Its called manneken pis. We were searching for this statue but we missed that ;) May be we will find him next time :)
We roamed around in the central market area taking pictures and going around..
From here we wanted to go to mini europe. We were looking which metro to choose when one lady told us that we should take a train to the place called Heisal. She was going in the same direction with her family. But when we boarded the train we realised that we were travelling in the wrong direction. So we got down at the next station and took a train going in opposite direction, we went till a place called Bekkant. From here we changed the line (trian route) to go in the right direction. Metros are just like tube trains in UK. The frequency of these trains is good and we can use one train pass to roam around as much as we want!
When we reached Heisal, it was already 5 30 and dark. Mini europe tour was unfortunately closed. We will go there some other time.. But there was another attraction in the same place called Atomium. This is a huge structure of molecule containing atoms. Each atom is a circular room. There are stairs leading to each atom and we see a different view of Brussels from each atom. It was looking amazing due to the lighting.
Near the atomium there was a famous theatre called kineeapolis. It was also nicely decorated.
After seeing atomium we came back from Heisal to Brussels Central. We went to Brussels city center again and while roaming aroudn, we lost the way (thanks. to me!! :P). Then we asked a guy about the directions of the station. The guy was very handsome ;) He was originally from Brazil.
Before going to the station we went to a chocolate shop. Belgian chocs are very famous. We tasted a choc there for free. I chose the one with alcohol ;). And I bought some chocs there. Megh u will get to eat the chocs. Manu is going to miss them :P (sorry manu,.. pan te rahanar nahit megh usa la pocheparenta nahitar tichya barobar mi pathavle aste tula L)
From here we could have gone to Brussels Nord and then back to Leige. But we saw that there was a direct train to Leige from here. We reached Leige. From here we had to take a train to Éupen which goes via Maastricht. While going back you have to be careful in choosing the train, because the train splits at a station. Half of the dabbas go to Maastricht and the other half goes in other direction. Thank God we knew about it. Another speciality of this train is that it stops at only two stations between Leige to Maastricht, so it’s a fast train.

We reached Maastricht at 10:00 @ night